Toll Roads In France

You can plot your trip on Via Michelin. It will give you a choice (if there is one) of routes and the cost of fuel and tolls.

Be advised that France has some of the highest cost/kM in Europe on their nice motorways. Carry lots of coins as your credit card will not work in the toll machines. Euro notes will also work nicely in the cash machines. Be sure to avoid the credit card only booths. You will be backing out of those as we did (only once, however). Lots of unhappy drivers behind you as you attempt your credit card and find out ultimately that it doesn't work in their toll machines.

Larry, can I/we presume that a chip and pin card will normally work? We will be driving Avignon to Lyon, and Google Maps shows the A7 out of Avignon as a "partial toll road". Either way we'll take the coins and small bills advice.

Another recommendation for www.viamichelin.com to help plan driving route, time, and cost.

A real c&p will work.

Before you decide to save the thirty bucks in tolls on the run up to Caen, figure if another hour and a half and fifteen bucks worth of gas is worth the trouble. Add some more of each if you start catching bunches of farm trucks poking down the road. Add some more if you're not sure of the name of every little village out in front of you so you won't make a wrong turn.

Ed is absolutely correct on this (as usual)> We used his advice for our trip two years ago and took this route. We used the toll roads to Caen and Bayeux, and Rouen. A few times because of site seeing we went on the "scenic route" and encountered tractors, etc, driving very slowly!

MY advice is to get an inexpensive Garmin in Canada and get the European maps loaded on it and suction cup it to the windshield. When you load the maps here, your voice lady will speak English. We found this very helpful! Unlike Ed, we don't speak fluent French.

The Michelin maps will be good, but there's nothing like a Garmin! We've used it all over France, Italy and Spain.

The autoroutes are expensive but very good savers of time and aggravation, especially if you're just trying to get from Point A to Points B, C, D etc. Especially useful for getting away from Paris suburbs and for your long run to Belgium.

GPS (Garmin or otherwise) helps a lot, not so much on the autoroutes where the signage is good, but in the cities and villages where you're wending your way through streets designed for horses and carts. Mine spoke English, and unfortunately mangled pronunciation of French words. It was entertaining though. ;)

Why don't you just take the train to at LEAST Caen and pick up your rental car there? You can even go on to Bayeux with the train and pick up car there...not as many choices, but at least you'll avoid all the tolls between Paris and either Caen or Bayeux.

Where was the train alternative question?
Anyway:

*Why don't you just take the train to at LEAST Caen and pick up your rental car there? *

a. Because the tolls are about thirty dollars, and gas will cost about twenty-five. Train tickets are about seventy-five for a pair, plus a couple of metro tickets - - that's eighty bucks and you're still going to pay a car rental the same day.

b. A car is faster.

You can even go on to Bayeux with the train and pick up car there...not as many choices.

Correct. Exactly one - - the Hertz place several miles from the train station out to the northwest of town.

Drove from Paris to Caen on April 5 and spent about 15 euros on tolls.

Thanks everyone. The only tolls I've ever had to pay were in Poland last year and were pretty cheap so I found France to be quite expensive. Still, it's going to be great!

When you figure how much you've paid already for the trip (airfare, car, gas, etc) and how much time you save via the autoroute, French toll fees are a pittance. Be prepared and use the cash lane which often has the shortest line.